This is my take on the Hiatus, hate me if you want, but I'd rather you love me...
The song is "Can't fall down" by Natasha Bedingfield, and i don't own it or House.
House sat on the old weather beaten bar stool, watching a careful breeze blow the palm fronds around. His glass was empty, the last drip of margarita slurped out of the glass quite a while prior. The bartender had left long ago, the sun having set hours before and it being far too late for anyone in their right mind to be out on the beach. But he wasn't in his right mind. Probably never had been, even after the lies he was fed at mayfield, even when he was with Cuddy, scratch that, especially when he was with Cuddy. For God's sake, he ran a car through her house! Which is why he was sitting here, on this God awful beach, in God awful Mexico.
But he ran, and with good reason. He was most likely being pursued by Cuddy's lawyers, and even though his name had probably fallen onto that long list of "unresolved" cases for the Princeton police, returning home would bring up all kinds of red flags. So he sat on his barstool, sipping the nothing in his glass. Thinking. An apology was on his lips, with no one to give it to but the sea. A curse was on his lips as well, one for himself, for being such a fucking idiot.
"You had her," he whispered, "you had everything, and then you ruined it. Just like you ruin everything, every relationship. Every person who comes into your life is given the burden of your pain." And he felt just like that. After he expelled every important person from his life, he was all alone with the pain. With the guilt. With the self-loathing. On a beach. In Mexico.
He couldn't handle pain, never could, and never would, as far as he was concerned. He reached for the bottle of pills in his pocket, finding nothing but a few grains of sand. "SHIT!" he screamed, to no one in particular. 'you deserve it' he thought, 'the pain, the impact of what you did'. He slipped off his stool at the thought, catching himself in the rough sand.
Staring up at the black sky, the bright lights of the stars, he felt a sudden wave of depression. More than his usual level of jerkness+ angry+ pissed off sadness, this was something deeper. It went beyond his attitude, beyond his treatment of others. There was no one here to blame, no one here to frighten. No one but himself. And frighten himself he did.
He lay in the sand, thinking over his life. He'd always prized his brain, his skill, his imperviousness, over emotion. He was a jerk, an asshole, a narcissist. Besides his odd knack of the saving lives of people he didn't care about, he was useless to the world, and that one little good thing was counter balanced by his amazing ability to depress and anger those closest to him. He cried like a fucking little kid at the thought. ' laying beneath a bar, in Mexico, crying. That's a real help' he thought to himself.
A song he'd heard Cuddy play a couple of times at her house, the very memory saddening him even further, began to play in his head.
'm at the point of almost breaking now
I've knocked on every door in this cold town, yeahhh...
The higher you go, the harder you fall
If I want to be safe, then I just stay small
Want to grow to the sky where it's beautiful
But I can't see that from the forest floor
How can I hold it together when nothing I try makes it better
I just want to lay here forever, cause if i don't get up
Then I can't fall down
There is no value for a broken heart
I want to use it but it's all in parts ohhh...
And the more you fall in, the harder to see
That this time is different, though I want to believe
And I don't know if I have it in me
To love again in the face of defeat
How did I hold it together when nothing I tried made it better
I just want to lay here forever, cause if i don't get up
Then I can't fall down
Yeah yeah yeah yeah ohhh
And if I don't get love, it can't let me down
Ohhh ohhh ohhh...
Hope is irresistible...hope is irresistible
Cause if I don't get up
One day I will...SOMEHOW!
When nothing I try makes it better
I just want to lay here forever, cause if i don't get up
Then I can't fall down
And if I don't get love, it can't let me down
He followed the words as he sang them, just laying in the sand. And as the last few bars played in his head, he sprung onto his feet. The gate to the bar was locked, but the top was low enough that he just swung over it, ignore the twinge in his leg. The light was even lower under the canopy, but he still could make out the reflective bottles of tequila behind the reinforced glass. "Screw reinforced," he slurred, feeling the affects of the excessive amount of alcohol he had consumed. He swung the metal head of his cane through the glass, and when that didn't work, he hit the slightly cracked barrier with his fist. The glass shattered, so did the bones in his hand. It didn't matter, he wouldn't be able to feel that soon.
He grabbed the first 5 or 6 bottles on the shelf, slamming them down on the counter.
"Here goes nothing."
He opened the first bottle and began a speed drinking competition with himself. One bottle down, then 2 then 3, and on it went. At the end of the first 5 he reached for more, knowing full well what the amount would do to him. 'that's the point' he thought.
The sand gave way as he dropped to the ground, cane falling by his side. 8 bottles down, and he was out cold. The depression inside him finally sedated, the guilt, the pain all gone. He never could face it. And so he let himself lay there, and slip into the cold that is death. 'If I don't get, up then I can't fall down.'